1000 Paper Cranes
by Kiefercarlos
Summary: ONE-SHOT: Steve doesn't sleep much, and instead of wandering the streets, he finds something to keep him occupied. The team end up taking part.


**Looks who's uploading again. Thanks to PrincessNaina for agreeing to Beta for me. Expected some more fics uploaded in the near future.**

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Steve hadn't slept much since the ice. He knows it's best for him not to be wandering New York at night, so instead he spends the late nights in his room, catching up with everything he missed out over the decades. He listens to music and watches TV and movies. He reads books and studies art.

Then the other residents start to notice the strangest thing. "What's this?" Clint asks as he picks up a folded piece of paper off one of the counters in the kitchen. Pepper looks up and furrows her brows. She steps closer, placing her tablet on the table and takes the paper out of Clint's hand.

"It's an origami crane?" She exclaims, confused as she stared at the folded paper in her hand.

"Is this your doing?" Tony asks turning from his coffee machine, cup in hand.

"No, I've made some before, but not at this sort of quality." She comments, shrugging and sitting down at the table, taking the coffee Tony passed over to her.

"So we've got an origami assassin in the building?" Tony questions as he sits at the table. As he speaks Natasha walks into the kitchen and the three of them turn to look at her. "Speaking of assassin." Tony mumbles around his coffee mug.

Natasha raises her brow as she grabs a mug out of the cupboard. "Are you the one to blame for the origami?" Clint questions as he leaned over to grab at his toast.

"The what?" She asks turning to sit on the counter next to Clint. He lifts up one of the origami cranes sitting on the counter next to him and passes it over to her. She looks at it impressed but shakes her head. "I would talk to Steve." She comments and then grabs some fruit and waders out of the room.

"Why Steve?" Tony asks turning to look at Natasha who turns back to them in the doorway.

"He was down here a few nights ago, looks like he was trying to do some origami. He might have left some around." She comments and wanders off.

"JARVIS, is Steve up and about?" Tony questioned to his AI.

"Yes sir. Captain Rogers has recently returned from his morning run." The voice replies. Tony nods his head and he turns back to his tablet. They expect him to come down for breakfast, so they'll talk to him then.

As if on cue, twenty minutes later, Steve walked into the kitchen and heads straight for the fridge. "So Captain Skilful, are you to blame for all the origami?" Tony asks, turning to watch Steve crack some eggs in a pan.

"Oh yeah, that's me sorry. My apartment is full of them." He mentions, and Clint looks at him in surprise.

"Really?" He asks and Steve turns to look at him and nods seriously.

"Yeah, I wanted something to do when I couldn't sleep." Steve admits as he pulled his toast out. "I've been watching TV and Movies, catching up with the world and I came across origami online. I've been making paper cranes for weeks." He admits sitting down at the table, with his breakfast. "I've got a couple hundred in my rooms."

Tony looked at him like he was insane. "Couple hundred?" Tony asks and Steve nodded. "I've been leaving them out and around the tower. I take a few with me when I go. I've even left a few out and about New York." Steve admits and Clint grinned and leans over Steve's shoulder. "Think you could teach me?" He asks and Steve just shrugs, "Sure if you want to?" Steve offers and Clint smiles over at Tony with a knowing look.

"Do you know what. Let's get the team together. We can have a team building exercise." Tony exclaims and Steve looks at him, like he's gone mad. Pepper, it seems, is staring at him the same way. "This will be really good. Everyone sitting round to do a calming activity. Maybe we could all do them in our own colours or something? Post a video online, inside scoop, that sort of thing?" Tony suggests arms out looking at Pepper and then at Clint and Steve.

"Well it's a sensible idea on your part and there's nothing dangerous that could happen." Pepper admits and Steve just shrugs.

"Well okay, if everyone can agree to it, I'll show you guys how to make origami cranes." Steve replies, finally getting back to his breakfast as the rest of the occupants of the tower, finally get back to their morning routines.

So two days later, all the permanent residents of Avengers Tower are now sitting spread out in the living room on the communal floor, coloured papers spread out in front of them. Steve is giving them instructions and repeating the process aloud to the team as they all attempt to make the small origami birds. Darcy is walking around the room filming the whole thing and giggling manically in the background. Origami was not the correct team session for someone like Thor. There was no surprise mind, that Bruce was a natural and Natasha is only the second quickest, because she decorated hers, earning a fist pump from Darcy.

Tony and Clint spent a lot of time swearing at their papers until they managed to get a whole crane to stand in front of them. There is a line of the coloured cranes sitting on a shelf in the entrance lobby to Avengers tower. The rest of the thousand cranes that was made that night, can be found dotted throughout the rest of the tower.

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 **Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Comments much appreciated.**


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